Extra Points

After falling from Patriots No. 1 receiver to Titans decoy last year, Randy Moss has decided to retire. He finishes his career with seven Pro Bowl selections, four All-Pro selections, and tied for second all-time with 153 touchdown receptions.

Exactly how I see it going. Given the chance to come in as the savior to help some team, he takes the easy money. Partly for the dough, but largely for the pride because he'll have had his fill of all the talk about how he was washed up and couldn't play any more.

Thanks to the intergoogle being jammed up with news stories when I search for Randy Moss Retire I can't find any of the quotes I want, but I'm absolutely certain that a few years back Moss was already talking about retirement, how he had enough money and didn't want to just stick around when he wasn't at the top of his game, and wanted to be done by his mid-30s.

I expected that after last season unless a contender wanted to give him a decent opportunity he'd call it quits.

I say legacy schmegacy. If a guy is getting on in years but still good enough to be productive and still has the desire who the hell is this lazy bastard sat on a couch to say he shouldn't keep playing?

If Moss had played a couple more years as a role player it wouldn't delete that amazing Monday night game as a rookie or his amazing catches over the years or any of the rest of the incredible plays he made over his career. Why is raging against the dying light of your physical skills now thought to be such a bad thing?

You're assuming that an elite player can comfortably become a role player, and that this is a certain thing. Sure, it happens that way sometimes. But the more usual scenario is a guy who over extends himself and ends up hurting the team rather than helping.

I'd say it happens that way most of the time with wide receivers. But Moss is a rather special case in that he's never liked going over the middle and unapologetically takes plays off, meaning his use if quite limited as a possession receiver or a secondary target.

I didn't get to watch a whole lot of Moss in his younger days, but the "He didn't like to go over the middle" absolutely didn't hold true in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

As to the taking plays off, every receiver does. Nobody can run full speed down field 70 times a game. The difference between Moss and most other guys was that he was so dominant when he was the focus of a play that people wondered why he wasn't the focus of every play.

Kinda late for that. For as great as he was, there will never be an article written about him for the rest of his days that fails to mention his taking plays off and unapologetically saying he only played when he wanted to. By the time he makes the Hall of Fame that will be a major component of every piece, debating how much better he could have been if he'd actually cared.

If the dude cared about his legacy, he'd still be playing trying to put some of that stuff behind him. But I don't think he gives a darn. And that's part of his legacy, too.

Moss had his issues, but he was one of the hardest workers who ever set foot on the field. Sadly, his quote about "playing when I want to" was taken horribly out of context and people like you have been echoing the error for years now.

Randy was simply saying he doesn't need anyone else to motivate him. If you've ever heard him speak, you'll understand that that things often come out in a jumbled mess of words.

The numbers in this blurb say a lot about his career: in 13 seasons, he only made seven Pro Bowls (I say "only" seven because I've never seen a receiver with his natural talent). But when he made the Pro Bowl, he was All-Pro four of the seven times.

Indeed. Years down the road, when the GOAT wide receivers are being debated, the list will look something like:

1. Jerry Rice
2. Motivated Randy Moss
.
.
.
.
.
~12. Randy Moss

I think one of his lesser-talked about legacies is the use of "motivated" as a player qualifier. We're seeing it to describe Haynesworth and some other this off-season, and I don't expect the media to use it any less going forward. It's the new "shutdown" corner.

I am happy he decided not to sign with the Jets, as I'm sure he'd be properly motivated to play the Patriots twice a year.

Just because I don't think I ever linked to them, I wrote posts on every time Randy Moss was thrown the ball this year, first on the Pats-Vikings part, then on the Titans part. From the second post,

As for Moss's future in the NFL, the Titans don't seem to, and shouldn't, have any real interest in bringing him back, so frankly I don't really care. If he can still be an elite receiver in the NFL, I didn't really see it in watching every pass thrown his direction this year, and given the rest of the stuff he brings with him, I don't think he or another team will be too interested in bringing him in to be a complementary receiver. It wouldn't surprise me to see this be the end of his NFL career, and his Titans tenure be regarded as a disconcordant footnote, sort of like Joe Namath's time with the Rams.

You've watched all that footage and I haven't, but from your write-up it sounds like the main criticism was that Moss was dropping any pass where a defender so much as breathed on him. That sounds to me much more like he was dogging it than that he's lost it. He would have no value to a franchise that didn't have both at least decent quarterbacking and the prospect of some sort of contention, but I'm surprised the Jets went with Burress rather than trying more seriously for him, and also thought the Rams, and a reunion with McDaniels, might have been a great fit.

Oh, I couldn't tell for sure that he'd lost it or if he was merely dogging it. Either one, I think, is a big risk for a team that considers signing him. I also liked Andrew Brandt's twitter comment that "Randy Moss is retired until a team he'd like to play for unretires him."

Dogging it's a more predictable and manageable risk, though. It's not like he dogs it at random. He needs to feel wanted, and valued, and he needs not to feel his team-mates (and most of all his quarterback) are dragging him down. If you have a good quarterback and are prepared to make nice, I think that risk can essentially be eliminated. And if he can still turn it on, even to 85% of what he used to be capable of . . .

One of the more interesting and enigmatic players of our time. I always had a soft spot for Randy, even before he joined the Pats. His incredible one handed catches, effortless speed and that drawl of his will be missed by this football fan.

So let the debate begin...who had the better career, do you think? Randy Moss, or T.O.?

I think (although I should probably check) that Randy had the better overall numbers, but TO played more consistently (for all of his headcasedness, TO played amazingly hard every time I saw him play, while Randy took plays off).

Yet TO was a major locker room cancer, while Randy was just a bit of a distraction.

I think both are probably HOF-bound, if the selectors look past the "buts" associated with each. But who was better?

Well, they both played essentially as full time starters 99-04 and 06-09. Over those seasons, TO had better DYAR and DVOA three times. Moss had better Football Outsider numbers seven times. So, despite taking plays off, Moss was more productive and more efficient most of the seasons that both of them played.

Consistency doesn't really help your case if your are consistently behind the "inconsistent" one you are being compared to. Playing hard every play is to be admired. But maybe it's not the most effective way to play after all.

After that, you might consider the quality of teammates, opponents, weather/dome effects, etc to make a case for TO. But you'd have to make the case.

Would blocking numbers take into account the times a CB and safety were run out of the play just because Moss looked like he might be considering thinking about maybe possibly running a vague approximation of a fly?

Why does Marvin Harrison never get any mention in these discussions? To be honest, I've seen like two or three Andre Reed games, but I would feel quite secure in placing him behind Marvin from what I've been told by those who did see him. And no one will even begin to convince me that T.O. could even hold Marv's jock. He caught 143 passes in a season when the next best receiver on the team was Marcus Pollard. Maybe I'm hanging from a limb here but that probably means he was immune to the "dropsies", unlike our good buddy Terrell.

Marvin Harrison does deserve to be in the discussion. Comparing him to Randy Moss with FO stats over the overlapping years, he was ahead of Moss as often as he was behind him. Unlike with TO, I think you can make a case that Harrison's consistency trumps Moss' peaks. Harrison did not have a remotely bad season from 1999 to 2006.

You'll hear some people discounting his performance because his QB was Peyton Manning. But really, he had established himself as a top-tier receiver in his second year when Jim Harbaugh threw 60% of the passes, with Paul Justin and Kelly Holcomb combining for the rest. It took him a couple of years to reach the same level with the inexperienced (not yet great) Manning. After that the most notable change was in the number of passes thrown his way, and two standout seasons (2001, 2006).

Given his performance prior to Manning's ascension, Harrison probably deserves much more of the credit than he is given for the Colts passing game of his time. He's one of the game's great receivers.

Sorry, but I just looked at the stats and Harrison hovered around 800 yards and 6-8 TDs per season over his first three years.

It wasn't until Manning's second season in 1999 (the start of the time frame you selected), when Manning started to reach elite level (I'd say he reached it in year 3) that Harrison's numbers exploded.

Harrison was a very good receiver, but the evidence does not support your assertion that he was great pre-Peyton. 866 yards and 6 TDs isn't "top-tier" in my book.

In 1997, Harrison was 10th in DYAR and 13th in DVOA. That's top-tier performance, putting him in the top half of #1 receivers. He did that with not much for QBs.

Harrison had just 3 of 11 years receiving from Manning with a better DVOA rank than 1997. Ranks aren't everything. But this was a period when changing rules made the passing game easier and easier, so rank is a proxy for adjusting for rule changes.

Manning did make Harrison produce more - by throwing to him more. But Manning didn't make him much better per throw. Manning gets credit, and deserves it, because he was in part responsible for increasing the number of opportunities without sacrificing the per-pass quality. But Harrison had already shown himself to be a solidly top-half #1 receiver when Manning showed up in 1998.

I think we may have to agree to disagree on this: I love this site, and much of their statistical work, but I believe of every number of any kind they have ever produced, the most worthless are their stats for individual WRs. First cherry picked illustration to come to hand: last year Austin Collie was third in DVOA, while Deion Branch was 11th in DYAR. Or for an example in the opposite direction, in 2009 Andre Johnson was 13th in DYAR and 35th in DVOA. I don't believe any stat based on the official play-by-play will ever be a really good way of evaluating wide receivers, but frankly I think yards per game is better than anything FO offers.

If you think the WR numbers are worthless, you will find tight end numbers to be worse. They are based on similar methods to WR, but whereas receiving is like 90% of a WR's job, it's about 25% of a TE's job.

I see what you're saying, but provided you understand them as rankings of tight ends as receivers, not overall, I think they do slightly better because the way tight ends are used as receivers is less varied than the way WRs are used as receivers. But no, I'm no great fan of those either. Prime victim last year: Zach Miller - the merely very good receiving tight end with the misfortune to be the best receiver on his team. That role is fine if you're Antonio Gates. Otherwise, it's going to hurt you in the metrics.

Actually, I do agree that DVOA by itself is at its weakest when assessing receivers. The reason is that a receiver's involvement in a play is partly caused by how well he runs his route. Run a bad route and you don't get targeted so your DVOA isn't affected. QBs and RBs are chosen to be in a play before they do anything and so their stats don't suffer from this problem. Add to this the problem that a WR gets targeted based on being the best target on that play, which can be affected by the quality of other receivers and coverage.

Still, I prefer DVOA and DYAR together to yards/game since they measure the total value of plays rather than just yardage, and so consider the risk of interception and the cost of an incomplete. It's best to look at both stats, and to form a picture of whether the DVOA is driven by usage or just skill.

In his first two years, catching passes from Harbaugh et al, Harrison played all 16 games both seasons. In 1998, his first year with Manning, he missed four games. Because of this, his counting stats for that year are slightly lower.

On a per-game basis, however, that means that with rookie Manning he made 0.3 more receptions a game for 10.6 more receptions per game and 0.21 more touchdowns a game. In 1999, as Manning emerged as an elite quarterback, Harrison's production exploded to the tune of 115-1663-12 (over 16 games), a further jump of 2.3 receptions, 39.2 yards and 0.17 touchdowns per game. Now, I'm sure some of that is organic improvement on Harrison's part. But really, when a guy has that sort of dramatic leap forward in production, at age 27, in his fourth year as a starter, you have to be looking for an explanation based primarily on context. Lewin did research in developing the projection system which suggested that year one to year two was the most common time to see a big jump in a quarterback's performance. Anecdotally and statistically, Manning's career fits the bill in that regard. I just don't see how it can be remotely credible to think Harrison's production didn't benefit hugely from playing with Manning.

Sure. But what we're discussing here is how Harrison compares with his contemporaries. Is he in the same category as Moss and Owens, or the same category as Holt, Bruce, Ochocinco etc? To that end, I think it's pretty germane to say he had noticeably better quarterbacking than Owens (and Holt, and Bruce) and vastly better quarterbacking than Moss (and Ochocinco).

Moss hands down; TO's drop problems plus the fact that he was an utterly awful teammate rule him out of the discussion. Moss was freakishly good when he played hard, which was often enough for him to be first-ballot HOF. If Randy Moss does not go into the HOF on his first ballot, something is very wrong here. Off-the-field stuff is a factor for MLB's HOF, not the NFL, and it shouldn't be part of the discussion.

It'll depend on who's eligible at the time, but it's not hard to imagine Moss not getting in on the first ballot. If there's a choice between Moss and a guy whose effort was never in question, there are enough voters who will go with the player who always did everything he could to help his team win.

Well, the HOF is clearly the HOF, but "first ballot" carries with it the implication of "the greatest ever"; these are guys like Rice, LT, Montana, and the others for whom there's no debate. I put Moss in that category.

Yes, in the end, it's all the same, but there's a certain cachet to being first-ballot, and I think Moss deserves that.

But should it carry any extra connotation? I don’t think it should. You are either a Hall of Famer or not. Greatest ever is a separate conversation. A guy like Ray Lewis is one of the greatest ever. He’s not in The Hall at all – because he’s not eligible. It doesn’t mean a hill of beans whether he gets in 5 years after he retires or 45 years after.

If there is a certain cachet to being first ballot, there shouldn’t be. This isn’t baseball.

So pick someone on your team. I personally think Michael Irvin is a complete jackass, but I wouldn't dispute that he's a Hall of Famer, and I wouldn't cheapen the honor by pretending that he's somehow less of a Hall of Famer because he didn't get in on the first try.

I'm a lifelong Giants fan who hate-Hate-HATES the Cowboys - and Irvin worst of all - but I think it was a travesty he didn't get in until his third year of eligibility. Only two made it in 2005 (Marino, Young), four in 2006 (Aikman, Carson, Moon, White) - it's not like he was being kept out by another worthy player.

It's not the fans who originated the idea that a 'first-ballot' as a separate honor, but by two-bit hack writers exercising the only power they will ever have by refusing to vote out of personal spite, or hold out votes as bargaining chips until 'their' players get a hearing.

Sorry, I just do think it's a somewhat meaningful distinction. Not as important as the gap between in or out, but it's a useful shorthand for "no reasonable person could even take seriously for a moment the notion that he might not belong in Canton".

Another Moss backer here. And as a Packers fan, I saw enough of both. When Moss wanted to play and had a QB who could get him the ball, you couldn't stop him with a triple team. As others have pointed out, his stats are better. The only way to really stop Moss was to get inside his head. I don't think taking plays off was a big deal. (Though taking games and seasons off was inexcusable.)

Moss. Although you can get into the argument that TO actually 'did' more, but Moss had the higher peak.

Moss did take plays off, he did dog it in Oakland (only in 2006, as in 2005 he seemed to be pretty committed and at least from a standard stats view played pretty well) and probably in Tennessee as well, but I've never seen anything as scary at the WR position than a committed Randy Moss. The real key to the 2007 Patriots: Randy Moss playing his ass off (that and a great o-line). I will go to the grave fighting that Randy Moss was the real MVP in 2007.

TO was a great, great player, but I would take Moss. I probably won't be telling my grand-kids that I saw TO play, but I'll tell them about the year that Brady just lofted up moonballs and Moss came down with a lot of them, or how he had great seasons and the Vikigns made the playoffs three straight years with three different starting QBs (Cunningham, George, Culpepper).

I think Moss was better than TO. Personally, I place more value on someone's peak rather than someone's consistency. It doesn't hurt Moss that the 2 Highest Scoring Offenses in NFL History have 1 Link Between them-Moss as their Best Receiver.

I don't like Moss taking plays off and all that junk, but it kind of amazes me the question would even be asked...Moss was far better than T.O. Not taking anything away from T.O., but he never changed games the way Moss could.

I'm with you - this isn't close. TO's been an outstanding receiver, but I'm not convinced he was any better than the likes of Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson - in fact, given his propensity for drops, he might not have been as good as those two. Moss, for all his eccentricities, was simply something else. Owens: clear hall of famer. Moss: greatest deep threat of all time, and worthy of serious consideration for the WR2 spot on an all time all pro team.

Both definitely well ahead of Harrison/Holt/Bruce/Wayne etc, for me at least. And don't even start with the Hines Ward crap . . .

I think the career numbers make the decision less obvious. TO played more (but not that much) and got an extra 1000 yds and 100 receptions with the same number of touchdowns. Moss had more talent, TO more drive (freakish physical training). I think the drive counts for something. Harrison is in the conversation in my book (precision, dedication, consistency) - except he's apparently a violent thug off the field so I'm ok dropping him

Let's at least give the man a day in court before dismissing him as a violent thug. It's one thing (and bad enough, even though I'll shamefully admit to this one) to look at someone who's found "not guilty" in a trial and still label him/her guilty, but to call someone guilty who's never been charged...

And in terms of intangibles, it's telling but unfortunate that on the play that essentially ended Marvin's career he was blocking for Addai. Darnit.

Yes. Extremely classy, team oriented guy on the field. Hard to reconcile with the reports of his thuggery. Don't know that it's true, but the reported evidence appears pretty strong. Response was more flippant than accusatory...

Your argument that his statement was a straw man is a straw man. He didn't say that Harrison was guilty because Lewis also had off-field issues. He's refuting the argument that Harrison's on-field actions make it difficult to believe he would have off-field issues by providing an example and stating that those two attributes are not mutually exclusive.

I think you have to give some consideration to quality of quarterbacking. Owens has by and large had very good (but almost never great) quarterbacking - the last few years of Young, Garcia in his prime, McNabb in his, Romo. Moss has had a wildly mixed bag, from prime Tom Brady to half a season each of Andrew Walter and Aaron Brooks. Harrison spent 11 of his 13 years catching passes from Peyton Manning. And where it's almost undeniable that Moss made his quarterbacks look considerably better than they were (even Brady), and there's pretty fair evidence to say TO did likewise, Manning has just carried right on being Manning in Harrison's decline and retirement (if anything's knocked his production, it's been the implosion of his offensive line). If you think Holt and Bruce are Hall of Famers, it's only reasonable to think Harrison is too. I think all three are marginal.

I think the Moss/TO discussion is over-looking how meaningful it was that Moss would give up on games. I personally have never been blown away by Moss because in 2004, probably the biggest of Culpepper/Moss years, the Eagles knocked them off twice - once on a crucial Monday Night game and then in the NFC Championship game. What struck me at the time and sticks with me now is that the Eagles focused their game plan on taking away Moss and the moment it started working, he just gave up. Both games were close enough that if he had been giving 100% all game, the Vikings could have easily taken either contest. But he didn't. He started dogging it. And that was that.

TO, on the other, hand played on a destroyed knee in the Superbowl and because of his intensity and drive the Eagles nearly upset a Patriots team considered one of the all-time great squads and a 14 point favorite to boot. You can't discuss Moss/TO without looking at 2004 and just how different they were as players in terms of what they gave on the field.

When a defense builds their entire game plan around stopping one player, and it works, the fault isn't on that player. Its that no one else stepped up.

A good example of this is the 2007 Patriots @ Cowboys game. Both were about 8-0 at the time IIRC. The cowboys built their scheme to stop Randy Moss at all costs, and it worked. Problem is, Welker and Stallworth had 150 receiving yards and a pair of touchdowns each.

I mean really, was it Marshall Faulk's fault the Rams lost the 2001 superbowl, or was it the fact that the offense fell apart without him?

My point is that Moss gave up - the Eagles didn't stop him. He was getting modest catches all game lon (15 yards here and there) and if he had been giving 100% it would have mattered to his team. Watch the footage, by the beginning of the second half, he's jogging off the line and barely making an effort. When he caught short routes, he went down on minimal contact. You can't accuse TO or Steve Smith of ever throwing in the towel like that, period. Even in the infamous "box and 1" playoff game where there were 4 guys covering Steve Smith on every play, he was still going full force, every play. Moss was a liability pure and simple in those 2004 games I'm talking about - I'd go so far as to say that the Vikings would have won both games if the star WR's had switched teams...

My point is that Moss gave up - the Eagles didn't stop him. There's a huge difference between "these guys shut me down, what can I do?" and "this is tough, so I'm going to half-ass it." Moss was getting modest catches all game long (15 yards here and there) and if he had been giving 100% it would have mattered to his team. Watch the footage, by the beginning of the second half, he's jogging off the line and barely making an effort. When he caught short routes, he went down on minimal contact. You can't accuse TO or Steve Smith of ever throwing in the towel like that, period. Even in the infamous "box and 1" playoff game where there were 4 guys covering Steve Smith on every play, he was still going full force, every play. Moss was a liability pure and simple in those 2004 games I'm talking about - I'd go so far as to say that the Vikings would have won both games if the star WR's had switched teams...

I don't think Moss played well when hurt... and I remember him being injured the week before at Green Bay. It was to the point where the announcers were even questioning why he was on the field since he couldn't run... then just when everyone thought he had nothing he found enough for one more sprint to beat Al Harris for the clinching TD.

But overall I guess one of the criticisms of Moss is he was never the type to turn a ship around when it was going the wrong way. He needed to be on a winner. When he was, and was convinced everyone around him was doing everything possible to win... then he was incredible.

I think even he realizes this. This is why he was really only going to consider certain teams. I feel if the Patriots had offered him a deal near the minimum he probably would take it... (at least before Ochocinco). There's probably only 5 or 6 teams he would work well with at this point.

I have Moss at a pretty firm #2 in terms of my list of greatest receivers ever. Rice is 1, obviously.

The sad thing is, if anyone was ever going to eclipse Rice, it was Moss. Hell, in my opinion- and maybe I'm an idiot- I think he could have potentially been the greatest football player- not just receiver- of all time (relevant sidenote: I'm too young to have ever seen Jim Brown play). Players that can dominate the competition like Moss could when he wanted to come around once a generation at best.

Well, if he could keep his pace of the first 6 years in Minnesota, he would have overtaken Rice.
The ridiculous thing though is that after those 6 stellar seasons, he should have had another 12 of those seasons to pass Rice in receptions, yards and TDs.

if you actually read the blog post (which by the by, thanks for linking. the whole blog is great reading) his point in listing the quarterbacks was not that they are scrubs or only great because of moss, it was to show that each of them, with the exception of kerry collins, enjoyed career years with moss on the field, and their performances all fell after he left.

the pennington thing is a little joke. the point, though, is not that these quarterbacks as a group are good or bad (obviously there are a few of both), but that they were MUCH more productive with moss than without him. (the same cannot really be said for rice's QBs, which does not mean rice was worse, but it means that there isn't as much evidence that rice was great.)

anyway, read the article, if you haven't already. the idea that a WR is better judged by the passing stats of his QB than by his own receiving stats is certainly an intriguing one.

I like the idea of the article, but you'd have to do the same for Rice if you're going to argue Moss was better than Rice.
But Rice's career was first with Montana who was already running a show for ~4 years, it was nearly impossible to get Montana better stats than he already had. They peak nicely with every complete year Montana has.
Young, never played WITHOUT Rice (not counting Tampa Bay, if we did, it'd be a point for Rice), so a comparison with/without Rice, like in the article, can't be made for Young.
Then Garcia shows up, Rice is at the end of his his peak (he's 37). Garcia's performance drops after Rice leaves even though TO is in town by that time.
Then Rice teams up with Gannon (and some others) in Oakland - raising his numbers for 2 years - right into the Superbowl at age 40... lose, hang around the league and call it quits in their late 30s/early 40s.
I think running these numbers; it's safe to say that the transition Montana->Young->Garcia had much to do with the presence of Rice.
Rice leaves 49er country and they manage to win 1 playoff game since then.

So yeah Moss made his QBs better. Rice just peaked with every QB he had, even at the age that would have made Moss retired for 6 years.

There aren't any deficiencies in Rice's stats, and there's no evidence that he was anything other than a great player. And certainly the smooth QB transitions that took place in SF and his moderately successful career in Oakland speak in his favor. But the breadth (more QB's, more situations) and depth (greater observable differences) of the evidence for Moss is much greater. This isn't Rice's fault in any way: Moss has an almost uniquely robust amount of data in this area. The problem is that stats (especially for receivers and QB's) in the NFL are so untrustworthy generally, that if you had to bet the farm on who was better, it might be wise to go with the one with the most reliable convergence of indicators (which, imo, is probably Moss).

I loved moss in Maddens but in real life, not so much. I was at the NFC championship game vs. the Jints where the Jints got up early, big, on the Vikes and that was that. Moss just jogged around, never once putting any pressure on the defense after the first quarter. Loser.. the jeff george of WRs.

Jeff George? That might be going too far, but there are many examples of Moss simply giving up (not getting shut down) when the going got tough. That team was built around Moss and when he started jogging, they all absolutely quit. In the Championship Game!

In the 1998 Falcons/Vikes playoff upset, his longest reception in that game was the first quarter TD. In the second half, he was a non-factor - his poor play (and, yes, Cunningham's fumble) let the Falcons off the hook...